First Meetings
by The Alpaca Dodo Duo
Summary: The son of the Nijimura meets the crown prince of Aka. Part of The Land of Many Bridges AU.
1. Chapter 1

Shuuzou had been staying on the island of Midori for six weeks when he met Akashi Seijuurou.

His family had always traveled the Nijira Islands but this was his first time on Midori, and his first time living in a palace. It was weird, but the Midorima family combined the unusual attributes of being both royalty and the best physicians on the island, his dad told him, making them their own royal physicians and leaving them no time to do ordinary things like sleep or have a sense of humour.

In that case, Shuuzou didn't see why they'd stayed here six weeks with no plans in sight to leave. But the one time he said this out loud, his dad had laughed, then looked very tired and ruffled his hair and said, "Sorry, kiddo. But a little while longer, okay?"

After that, Shuuzou didn't ask when they were going to leave again. His dad always looked tired now, even when he was resting, even with the best food and sleep and medicine the Midorima family could provide. Shuuzou couldn't see that they were helping, but they were supposed to be the best physicians on the islands, the best physicians anywhere, so if they couldn't help, no one else could.

But Shuuzou wasn't thinking that far ahead yet.

What he was mostly thinking, as he wandered through the sprawling Midori palace gardens, was how bored he was.

It was a fine spring morning - the trees were turning green, and the flowers beginning to bud. In the distance, someone was playing the biwa; and next to a nearby fountain, a court astrologer, recognisable by the suns and moons embroidered on his kimono, was telling fortunes to to the lords and ladies that milled around him.

As far as Shuuzou could tell, everyone in the Midori palace only cared about music and medicine and reading the stars. There weren't many boys his age around, apart from Prince Shintarou, and the young prince was always busy with music and medicine and reading the stars himself. They'd met weeks ago, but they never seemed to have anything to say to each other beyond stilted small talk.

Shuuzou had no interest in star-reading - his dad thought it was a joke the Midori nobles had invented to amuse themselves - so he steered clear of the astrologer and his audience to head deeper into the garden. His path, picked at random, wound between hedges and past lily-padded ponds. Shuuzou passed through an arbour of sweet-smelling jasmine, then stopped, surprised, in front of a small pavilion.

Prince Shintarou was in the pavilion, sitting seiza in front of a wooden board, and there was another boy his age sitting opposite him. Suddenly curious, Shuuzou climbed the pavilion steps before he could think better of it..

Up close, he saw that they were playing chess. Prince Shintarou was playing black and had just moved his bishop. (Shuuzou wasn't any good at chess, but his dad had made him learn enough to recognise the pieces and some of the rules.)

It was the other boy's turn to make his move. Instead, he looked up. "You must be the Nijimura's son."

Shuuzou paused, unsettled by the intent stare. Most people never recognised a Nijimura on first sight, they spent most of their time looking too common. He wasn't even wearing the family crest, or dressed half as finely as Prince Shintarou.

"Am I mistaken?" asked the boy. He had red hair and eyes, which meant he was from the Aka Isles, and his clothes looked even more extravagant than Prince Shintarou's.

"No," Shuuzou answered. "I'm Nijimura Shuuzou."

"I'm Akashi Seijuurou," said the boy. Then he turned to Prince Shintarou. "Shall we stop the game here? It's my win anyhow."

Prince Shintarou narrowed his eyes, but nodded. His friend climbed to his feet and he followed.

"You're the crown prince of Aka," Shuuzou realised. He was terrible at his heraldry lessons, but he had at least heard of the Akashi family. And Aka was the island just west of Midori, so it must be easy for their royal family to come visit.

Prince Seijuurou inclined his head and said, "Yes. Shintarou, when you said the Nijimura was visiting Midori, you did not mention he was staying in the palace. I should have gone to greet him. Did my father know of this?"

Prince Shintarou looked uncomfortable, then stiffly recited, like an essay someone had made him memorise, "The Nijimura has made it clear this is a very private visit," he said. "He trusts in the Midorima's discretion and we would never betray that trust. There is no issue of court formalities, he is present in a purely private capacity."

The two boys stared at each other, and Shuuzou got the uncomfortable feeling he might be watching a small war in progress. A small war over his dad, and his apparently secret visit to the Midori palace that no one had bothered to mention or explain to him, and that Shuuzou might have ruined just by walking around and running into the wrong person.

Suddenly annoyed at everything and at the two boys in front of him most of all, he said, "Oi."

The two boys turned. Prince Shintarou looked like he might be offended at being addressed so informally, but Prince Seijuurou just looked curious.

"Don't bug my dad about this kind of stuff, he's got better things to do," Shuuzou informed them.

Prince Shintarou looked like he was really offended now. Shuuzou ignored him and scowled at Prince Seijuurou. The other boy returned the stare, unblinking, then said, "Of course I won't trouble the Nijimura if he's busy. Don't worry, the Akashi family's discretion is certainly equal to the Midorima's."

Shuuzou eyed him and decided that had to be good enough. "Alright," he said.

Prince Seijuurou said, "This is your first time in Midori, isn't it? Did Shintarou show you around?"

"I got the palace tour," Shuuzou said, shrugging.

Prince Seijuurou smiled, sidelong. "The palace tour doesn't show you the catacombs under the palace."

"Aren't those locked and sealed?" Shuuzou said. His palace guide had said as much, along with several ominous stories about the vengeful ghosts, dog-sized rats and rattling skeletons of ill-fated explorers that populated them.

"My friend found a map to the tunnels in the library yesterday. We're hoping to find an entrance in one of the wine cellars that we believe might still be in use."

"Seijuurou," Prince Shintarou said in horrified tones."Are you suggesting-"

Prince Seijuurou said, "Legend says that the Midori palace catacombs are the reason your great-grandfather was able to escape the palace during a coup, and later return to reclaim his rightful throne. Don't you think an understanding of their workings might be useful to you one day? Knowledge is always valuable."

Prince Shintarou spluttered.

Shuuzou thought about it, then said, "Sure, why not?" Underground tunnels sounded cool. Prince Seijuurou didn't seem to be as hung up on court etiquette as Prince Shintarou, and if he was from Aka, he probably wasn't obsessed with star-reading. That already made him the least boring person Shuuzou had met in weeks. "So where's your friend?" he added, since the mystery friend obviously wasn't the Midori prince.

"I'm here," a voice said from right beside Shuuzou, and he narrowly avoided leaping straight in the air with a yell.

"Ah, Tetsuya," Prince Seijuurou said and favoured the boy who'd appeared out of thin air with a smile. "Did you bring the map?"

The boy, with pale-blue hair and eyes that Shuuzou couldn't peg on any islands he knew of, nodded. "I have it here," he said, and pulled a slim folio, bound in leather, from his sleeve.

"Where the hell did you come from?" Shuuzou demanded. He could have sworn there were only three people in the pavilion a moment ago and it wasn't like he was that unobservant. Today was had just gone from boring to interesting and now straight into creepy, and it wasn't even lunch yet.

The boy blinked at him and said, "My apologies, I did not mean to startle you. But I was there the whole time."


	2. Chapter 2

The catacomb explorations went fine until the zombies tried to kill them.

This was Prince Seijuurou's fault. Not that Shuuzou usually believed in pointing fingers, but they wouldn't even have found the zombies to begin with if the prince hadn't been too smart for his own good. (In time, Shuuzou would realise this was characteristic of all of Seijuurou's good ideas, but he didn't know this _yet_.)

It was their second day exploring the tunnels. Despite the palace guide's dire warnings, they had proven to be surprisingly rat-free, skeleton-free and ghost-free so far. With the maps as their guide, they'd made their way through winding tunnels and found old storage cellars, filled with empty barrels and broken furniture and burial chambers, some lined with urns, some filled with old stone coffins.

While they were wandering through the largest underground chamber they'd found so far, Seijuurou came to a stop and frowned.

"Tetsuya, give me the map," he called.

His quiet friend handed it over and Seijuurou spread it along the wall and motioned for Prince Shintarou to raise the lamp for light. He examined the map, then looked around the cavern, scanning the low arched doorways that opened from the hall into other tunnels.

"There should be a tunnel here but it's missing," he said.

They stared at the section of wall that Seijuurou was pointing at. Unlike the rough earthen walls that lined the tunnels, someone had troubled themselves to line the walls here in brick, but other than that, Shuuzou saw nothing else unusual.

"Perhaps it collapsed in a rock fall and was sealed off," Shintarou suggested. "The maps are old and might not show later changes to the tunnels."

"That's true," Seijuurou said. "It's a pity though. That tunnel would have linked us with a passageway to the underground river that runs under the palace. I was quite looking forward to finding it."

Shuuzou said, "We can find another way around. There's got to be other tunnels, right?"

"Hm," was all Seijuurou said. Then he reached out and pushed a brick in the wall. The brick sank in, and the chamber rumbled ominously. All of them, Seijuurou included, jumped back like startled rabbits, even as the wall split open to reveal a tunnel beyond.

Shuuzou and Shintarou gaped. Tetsuya blinked. Seijuurou looked extremely pleased with himself.

"Shall we?" he said.

The three of them exchanged looks. Tetsuya looked cautiously curious, Shintarou grimly resigned. Shuuzou was starting to understand why the Midori prince had refused to be left behind, but hey, they'd already come this far, right?

"Lead the way then," Shuuzou said for all of them.

After some walking, the tunnel split itself into two, one path leading upwards, one leading down. Prince Seijuurou frowned again. "This was not on the map," he said, staring at the upward path.

"The other path looks more likely to lead down to the river like you said," Tetsuya pointed out.

"Yes, but where does this go?" Seijuurou asked, and set off up the tunnel without a backward glance, forcing the rest of them to follow. A long-ago rock fall had left the tunnel partially blocked with rubble, but it wasn't so bad that four reasonably agile boys couldn't scramble through. Beyond the rock fall, it widened into another chamber, and here they stopped, open-mouthed.

The floor was scattered in loose bones and what were clearly human skulls. At the far end of the chamber, a slumped figure sat in a stone throne hewn from the wall itself. Its kimono might have once been rich silk, but time and dust had faded them to dull grey. Other clothed and armoured figures lay sprawled on the ground beside it.

"Crap," Shuuzou said. The burial chambers earlier hadn't creeped him out, but this place was definitely bad news. They had to get out of here.

The flickering light fell on the seal carved into the wall above the throne, and Seijuurou said, "That's the old Midori seal, last used in the time of King Fukube."

The figure on the throne lifted its head to reveal empty eyes. A voice like the grinding of stone on stone asked, "Who speaks my name?"

Shuuzou bit back a yell and Shintarou made a startled noise of horror beside him. Even Tetsuya, who had followed Seijuurou with seemingly fearless calm so far, shrank back. Only Seijuurou lifted his head with unflinching arrogance and said, "I am Prince Akashi Seijuurou of the island of Aka, and I called your name."

"A prince of Aka dares intrude in my palace?" King Fukube asked.

"Centuries have passed since your reign, this palace no longer belongs to you. I am a honoured guest here."

"Insolent child," King Fukube said. "What do you know of my reign? I decreed that it would never end, Death means nothing to me!"

"And yet you lie trapped here, forgot-"

King Fukube roared and the ground trembled beneath them while the clothed figures around the king lurched to their feet.

"Stop talking!" Shuuzou yelled. "Just run!"

Seijuurou finally abandoned the conversation and turned to flee. Unfortunately, in his haste, the two swords he had insisted on bringing with him tangled - and tripped him flat on his face just as the first of the undead, an armoured warrior, grabbed and lifted him by his ankle.

"Unhand him!" Shintarou shouted, and hurled a rock with uncanny accuracy at Seijuurou's captor. It struck him squarely on the head with a loud crack, and the undead soldier dropped his prey unceremoniously. Seijuurou managed to tuck himself into a ball and roll to his feet, Tetsuya caught his arm to pull him up and they ran for it.

But the rockfall that had seemed easy enough to climb earlier didn't seem so easy now they were being chased by undead warriors. Pebbles slid from under their feet as they scrabbled through the rubble, and when Tetsuya lost his footing and fell back, one of the undead caught him. Shuuzou had to pull the knife he wore strapped to his waist (it didn't look as cool as Seijuurou's swords, sure, but at least he knew how to use it without falling on his face) and hack at the bony arm until it freed the smaller boy.

For people who had been dead for hundreds of years, King Fukube's warriors were stronger and faster than they looked. The rockfall was slowing them down, but Shuuzou had a bad feeling that once they got back to the open tunnels, they were going to be in big trouble. They couldn't hope to fight them off or out-run them all the way back to the Shuutoku palace-

"If we can - block tunnel - walls here - weak-" Seijuurou panted as they tumbled back into clear space.

That was easier said than done. But he was right - the rockfall meant the walls here were already crumbling. King Fukube and his warriors had been trapped here before, so that meant they could be trapped again.

Shuuzou was the oldest one among them, and he was a Nijimura. Like it or not, he was supposed to be the responsible one here. And anyway, he really didn't want to have to explain to the kings and queens of Aka and Midori how he'd let their princes be killed by zombies. He had to do something, even if it was something crazy.

"Everybody run back to the main tunnel!" he shouted over his shoulder. "I'll stop them!"

This would have worked better if Aka and Midori's crown princes actually listened to him though.

"What?!" Shintarou demanded.

"We're not leaving you!" Seijuurou announced.

Tetsuya actually gripped the back of his shirt, as if he thought he could drag Shuuzou away by himself.

"I'll be fine! I'm a Nijimura!" he yelled at them. "Stop being idiots!"

Then the first of the undead warriors appeared, and there was no time left to argue or get the others away. Shuuzou glared at the roof of the tunnel, right where the rockfall began, focused his mind on the most powerful Word of power he knew, and aimed it like a spear into the rock.

Dad had taught him that you didn't need to speak a Word to give it power so he didn't, but he tasted it like sparks on his tongue, felt it whistle through his teeth in a sharp gust of breath.

_Break_.

And the tunnel roof burst open in a shower of rock and earth.

Shuuzou threw himself flat to the ground and hoped he hadn't buried them all alive. For too long, there was nothing but the crash and thump of falling debris everywhere.

When, at last, the world seemed to settle into silence again, he rolled over, sat up and was relieved to find that he could. Muffled groans and complaints told him that the others were still alive even if he couldn't actually see anyone in the darkness.

Then he scrubbed dirt from his eyes and squinted. Wait. Was that light…?

A glimmer of daylight had broken through what had formerly been the roof. Either the tunnel was much closer to the surface than they'd thought, or he'd accidentally brought down a lot more rock than he should have. Shuuzou didn't let himself think about that part too hard though. The important thing was that everyone was in one piece, and now they had an exit.

Raised voices and shouts from above told them that people had noticed the sudden earthquake.

"Hey! We're down here!" Shuuzou shouted. The others raised their voices to shout too, and soon the hole had been widened, and a girl cautiously leaned over to peer in. She gasped at the sight of the 4 filthy boys.

"Prince Shintarou?! What are you doing down there?!"

So much for keeping the catacomb explorations secret. Shuuzou wondered how he was going to explain this to his parents, and sighed.

* * *

><p>Several hours of digging, three hot and unpleasant baths and four long lectures (each lecture from a different angry person) later, Shuuzou was cleaner than he'd ever been in his life.<p>

He was probably in the worst trouble he'd ever been in his life too. It was one thing to have gone out of bounds or accidentally caved in a garden shed or whatever, but the part where he'd nearly buried two princes alive after they'd all gotten themselves chased by zombies - he'd probably be lucky if he just got exiled from Aka and Midori for the rest of his life. But what if he'd gotten the _Nijimura_ exiled? Could you even exile the Nijimura? He hoped not.

When his dad finally came into his room, he made himself straighten. Dad didn't say anything though, just sat next to him on the bed where he'd been sitting, awaiting judgement.

"Sounds like it's been a long and exciting day for everyone," he said.

"I'm sorry," Shuuzou said immediately, to get it over with.

Dad gave a low snort of laughter. "I'm sure you are. That was quite a mess you made of the west garden. We're lucky you missed the fountain."

"Are they going to arrest me?" Shuuzou asked, glum. "They can't exile you or anything even if they kick me off, right?"

"Is that what you were worried about?" Dad asked. He sounded amused, which just annoyed Shuuzou. He was being serious here. "You can stop worrying. No one's being arrested, though I think the King of Midori is a little tempted to dump Prince Seijuurou in his dungeons for the rest of the week. Wouldn't be the first time he's thought of it either, from what I've heard."

Shuuzou felt the corner of his mouth twitch. Yeah, he didn't think so either.

"And, instead of exiling my disreputable son, the Queen of Aka made me a very interesting offer instead. How do you feel about a trip to Aka? By yourself?"

Shuuzou stopped. "Aka? By myself? But what about you? And Mom? And-"

"I need to stay in Midori for a while," Dad said. "Travelling - I don't think I'm quite up to it yet. Maybe later, hm? It won't be a long trip, not to start with. Your mother hasn't decided yet, but she might go with you too. But I know you're pretty bored here, and it looks like you get along well with Prince Seijuurou and his friend. She thinks the three of you will be good company for each other. So how about it? Sound like a good idea to you?"

Shuuzou hesitated. Sure, he was being bored to death in Midori, and Aka was probably the opposite of boring if Prince Seijuurou had anything to do with it, but he couldn't just leave Dad like this - what if something happened and he wasn't here?

"But what if you - what if something happens?" he finally said. "I - I think I'd rather stay here."

A heavy hand landed on his head and rubbed so hard that he yelped. "It's my job to worry about you, not the other way around," Dad announced. "Do you think your old man's going to kick it tomorrow? Aka's right next door and their gate to Midori still works so if anything happens to you, _I_ can get there immediately. Don't get cocky here."

"Ow, Dad, stop that!"

"So that's settled then."

"Why'd you even ask me if you weren't going to listen?!"

"Think of it as your punishment for today. No complaints!"

_end_


End file.
